Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Inflation surges to its highest since 1990

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 58 posts

Re: Inflation surges to its highest since 1990

#21

Post by noduerme »

neximo64 wrote: post #9
ur-whale wrote: post #5

Inflation is boiled frog style taxation. Unfortunately, it's taxation that makes the weakest suffer the most. Oh, and the govt would like you to believe they have a way to control it. Yeah sure, I'm going to turn that knob that is one input of a perfectly chaotic system, and I know what is going to happen. Let's see how that empty promise actually turns out.

And also in a way the opposite. If there was a scale of value in terms of being between the borrower (people in debt) and people lending (people with cash). It swings heavily in favour of people in debt.

This. Let's not discount the fact that this is why I've been loading up on everything I always wanted to buy on 2-3% APR for the past year. I'm a person who never had any debt or credit for the last 25 years. But now's the time. Me and everyone else in America. That's the demand spike. Everyone wants to lock in the rate before the party stops.

Re: Inflation surges to its highest since 1990

#22

Post by Steko »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #7
vbg wrote: post #4

Inflation is complete bullshit because it’s careful to measure a subset of prices and exclude a large range of other prices. Meaningless crap, designed to support government narrative that everything is great, nothing to see here. To have any credibility at all, inflation MUST include rent/mortgage payments and house prices.

Doesn't the CPI include housing? (food and beverages, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care, recreation, education and communication, and other goods and services) Question 10. https://www.bls.gov/cpi/questions-and-answers.htm

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), for example, measures the prices of a basket of household goods and services that households regularly consume, with weights assigned to each item in the basket based on their average shares of total expenditures. Among these is a shelter component that includes both rental costs and the consumption value of owner-occupied housing, in addition to other forms of lodging such as hotels. Shelter makes up nearly a third of the basket for CPI inflation, and 40 percent of the basket for core CPI that excludes the volatile food and energy components.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/blog/2021/09/09/housing-price...

You can bet every HN thread about inflation will be full of bad info from cranks.

Re: Inflation surges to its highest since 1990

#23

Post by noduerme »

pa7x1 wrote: post #16
ur-whale wrote: post #5

Inflation is boiled frog style taxation. Unfortunately, it's taxation that makes the weakest suffer the most. Oh, and the govt would like you to believe they have a way to control it. Yeah sure, I'm going to turn that knob that is one input of a perfectly chaotic system, and I know what is going to happen. Let's see how that empty promise actually turns out.

Inflation does not affect (relatively speaking) the poorest more. On the contrary, it's a tax on people that have a lot of cash or cash-equivalent assets. That's not the poor. The poor have either very little cash or even negative (via debt), so inflation benefits them. And you can see this historically, too: Historical inflation rate chart: http://www.aboutinflation.com/_/rsrc/1369736825466/inflation... Wealth gap i…

"rich in cash"? No. Just those without other assets. Are you rich in cash if all $100 you have is in cash?

Inflation is the most regressive tax possible on the poor.

Re: Inflation surges to its highest since 1990

#24

Post by skohan »

vbg wrote: post #4

Inflation is complete bullshit because it’s careful to measure a subset of prices and exclude a large range of other prices. Meaningless crap, designed to support government narrative that everything is great, nothing to see here. To have any credibility at all, inflation MUST include rent/mortgage payments and house prices.

If that's true, wouldn't it be a warning sign if this metric purpose-built for making the government look good started going downhill?

Re: Inflation surges to its highest since 1990

#25

Post by noduerme »

blatchcorn wrote: post #14
neximo64 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also in a way the opposite. If there was a scale of value in terms of being between the borrower (people in debt) and people lending (people with cash). It swings heavily in favour of people in debt.

I see your point in theory but in practice: - poor people have less money to repay interest on the debt after buying necessities at an inflated price - interest rates rise following inflation which will increase debt repayment costs and likely offset any benefits gained from debt being inflated away - it is very rare for 'people' to actually issue loans, I imagine 99.99% of loans are issued by banks

Nonetheless, it's a great time to take on debt. (if you can get a fixed rate)

Re: Inflation surges to its highest since 1990

#26

Post by skohan »

noduerme wrote: post #23
pa7x1 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation does not affect (relatively speaking) the poorest more. On the contrary, it's a tax on people that have a lot of cash or cash-equivalent assets. That's not the poor. The poor have either very little cash or even negative (via debt), so inflation benefits them. And you can see this historically, too: Historical inflation rate chart: http://www.aboutinflation.com/_/rsrc/1369736825466/inflation... Wealth gap i…

"rich in cash"? No. Just those without other assets. Are you rich in cash if all $100 you have is in cash? Inflation is the most regressive tax possible on the poor.

Only if wage inflation doesn't keep up with price inflation. If wage inflation keeps pace, it's actually a fairly progressive result since debt loses value relative to wages.

For people without income or assets it's a disaster.

Re: Inflation surges to its highest since 1990

#27

Post by qeternity »

Steko wrote: post #22
edmcnulty101 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the CPI include housing? (food and beverages, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care, recreation, education and communication, and other goods and services) Question 10. https://www.bls.gov/cpi/questions-and-answers.htm

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), for example, measures the prices of a basket of household goods and services that households regularly consume, with weights assigned to each item in the basket based on their average shares of total expenditures. Among these is a shelter component that includes both rental costs and the consumption value of owner-occupied housing, in addition to other forms of lodging such as hotels.…

Yes but through hedonic adjustment fuckery, many CPI measurements, especially housing, are complete nonsense.

Basically, if the cost of housing is rising, but the quality of housing is also rising, then these things will offset to a degree as far as CPI is concerned.

It’s one of the reasons healthcare inflation is so absurdly underrepresented. CPI basically assumes that you could pick any level of quality for a good or a service since the index inception. But you can’t go to a hospital and say “I just have a small cut on my finger, I’d like the 1950s level of care”…you will get the 2021 level of care and 2021 prices. But CPI will say “ah that’s not necessarily inflation because the quality of care has also gone up!”

Re: Inflation surges to its highest since 1990

#28

Post by ignasheahy »

pa7x1 wrote: post #16
ur-whale wrote: post #5

Inflation is boiled frog style taxation. Unfortunately, it's taxation that makes the weakest suffer the most. Oh, and the govt would like you to believe they have a way to control it. Yeah sure, I'm going to turn that knob that is one input of a perfectly chaotic system, and I know what is going to happen. Let's see how that empty promise actually turns out.

Inflation does not affect (relatively speaking) the poorest more. On the contrary, it's a tax on people that have a lot of cash or cash-equivalent assets. That's not the poor. The poor have either very little cash or even negative (via debt), so inflation benefits them. And you can see this historically, too: Historical inflation rate chart: http://www.aboutinflation.com/_/rsrc/1369736825466/inflation... Wealth gap i…

This is completely wrong, it disproportionally affects the poor and middle class the most because all they have is their wages and a little bit of cash. Wages are not that elastic and will certainly lag behind. Rich are heavy on assets and it doesn't affect them at all unless they are stupid enough to convert those assets to cash during high inflation period (it of course doesn't happen).

Re: Inflation surges to its highest since 1990

#29

Post by noduerme »

skohan wrote: post #26
noduerme wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"rich in cash"? No. Just those without other assets. Are you rich in cash if all $100 you have is in cash? Inflation is the most regressive tax possible on the poor.

Only if wage inflation doesn't keep up with price inflation. If wage inflation keeps pace, it's actually a fairly progressive result since debt loses value relative to wages. For people without income or assets it's a disaster.

Minimum wage is always going to lag way behind inflation. In practice, almost all wages lag behind inflation. But "people without income or assets" is my definition of "poor" and ...yeah, inflation basically takes a meager $1200/mo government check and makes it worthless. they're already on the brink of starvation.
Post reply on HN